Easy Livin' in Fiji

After rinsing the gear and a proper shower - I went in search of a nice spot on the covered terrace where I could write and get a bite to eat.



Prince Charming??

The storm clouds were rolling in again and the rain quickly followed. People scurried for cover, but there were a few characters that were happy for the rain. All over the garden frogs appeared basking in the fresh water, hopping and skipping for joy. Ok I may be anthropomorphising there, but that's what it looked like to me!

After a delicious dahl soup for lunch, I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering on the beach watching little clams hide in the sand.

At one point I was contemplating the wonders that I had seen that morning when something bumped my hand.

I yelped.

Yes, I admit it, it scared the living bejeezus out of me. (those of you who know me well know that that isn't hard to do anyway)

She was more frightened than me after my yelp and the arm flailing - she almost ran away, but then when I held my hand out to her to show her no harm done she came back.

Dogs are always up for a chin rub or an ear scratching.

We had a nice chat she and I.

I meandered back to the resort and decided to finally use the computer so that you could all join me in this beautiful place.

That night I slept like a log.

Shark Diving - Day 1

I woke up early as usual and quietly got my gear together - my room mate, whom I had met on the bus on the way to Sydney, had been sick on the bus to the resort and had not slept much.

When I was done, I figured I still had some time on my hands before breakfast, so I went in search of the elusive internet. I'd been told that I needed to purchase a card to use the computers here. I asked at the front desk thinking that I would have ample time to at least send word of my safe arrival, before breakfast.

I learned that we don't do things quickly in Fiji. Buying a $12/h internet card took 15 min. Alas that meant no internet time for me, no news for you. Time for breakfast...and then to the boats!

I shan't give you the play-by-play of breakfast (buffet, pretty good), or of the bus ride across the street (literally) to the dive shop (in fairness we all did have a lot of stuff to carry), or of the administration of getting ready to board the boats....except maybe to say that getting into a neoprene wetsuit, when it's hot and humid and your skin is clammy...well, it's not pleasant. Let's get to the good stuff.

The boat took us out about 30 min from shore, to a place they call "the Bistro". We drop in, the water is a comfortable 26 degrees. "Why do you need a wetsuit then?" I hear you ask. Well, underwater your skin, anything pale in colour, looks remarkably like the white belly of a fish. Would you want to look like anything resembling a fish near a shark? No exposed skin is the rule.

We drop to 28m. On the way down we see thousands of hand sized fish flitting about, mostly Sergent - Majors - black and white striped fish, but there are also Moorish Idols and ....geez I really gotta learn the names of more fish!

Then we start to see what we came for, the smooth graceful moves of sharks. At first we see smaller Black Tip Reef sharks, they're about 2 meters long, thin and sleek. Then we see the slightly larger Tawny Nurse sharks with their small mouths and Fu-Manchu mustaches, they are bottom feeders and use their mouths to suck their food out of hiding places instead of chasing it like their other brothers. Lastly, we see the Bull sharks. They are bigger again about 3-5 meters. They're not lean and sleek like the others, they look like the have a hump on their backs and are more barrel chested. And their teeth...jaggedly sticking out in at odd angles. They have a reputation of being mindlessly aggressive. But we don't see that. They check you out as they pass with their strangely cold white eyes.

They are magnificent. We are all mesmerized.

Soon I begin to notice something. One of the Bull sharks has this weird growth on the side of his mouth: its an old hook. His body has tried to incorporate it into its body somehow. There's also a Nurse shark with a big hook through it's nostril - a gross parody of our piercing culture. Yet another trails a long line behind it, the hook still embedded in it's body somewhere. Many have damage to their fins - from fighting with fishing lines, reckons our guide.

Not my photo - someone else from the group took this one

Finally the piece de resistance. We were told not to expect her. She stole 40 kg of fish heads on Monday from the feeders (yeah, there's a reason they don't even try to go for the divers). But remarkably, there she is. A Tiger shark. She's about 5-6 meters long and is darker than the others, you can see the stripes clearly as she glides past. The others back away from her. She is the dominant one here.

  The dive leader tells us later that when she first arrived at the Bistro she had a hook in her mouth. It was fairly new so they decided to take it out...VERY carefully (don't try this at home, kids). Her dorsal fin is missing a fair chunk and looks quite ratty. She may have won the fight with the fisherman, but she now has a permanent reminders of the altercation - just like the others. They have named her Survior.

Too soon the fish heads that the guides have been handing out to attract the sharks are done. The sharks disperse, and it's time for us to leave. None of us wants to, but we will soon be back. Just an hour at the surface.

The hour passes quickly. We are told about the various sharks we saw. We are told some stories about the characters that some of them have - There's even a "special needs" shark who is a bit of spaz. They tell us of the hierarchy in the species that we saw in action moments before. They also tell us that the marine fee we pay goes directly to the village that tends this section of the reef. If there are poachers - the villagers take care of it. The tuna industry that once was a big money maker here nearly wiped out life on the reef here.  When the dive operator first approached the village elders with his idea to re-generate the reef by protecting this area and bringing tourist dollars to help, the elders thought he was mad. "You think people will pay you to swim with sharks? We won't have to pay them??"
The plan seems to be working.

We don't do as deep this second time, only 18m. Again we're mesmerized by these amazing creatures. They've seen their fair share of humans and they like to swim right up to you to size you up....actually they just want to know if you have any fish heads. Not a good idea to reach out and touch one even if they are so close...the shark feeders also hold out their hands, but they have fish heads - you don't. You really don't want to be mistaken for one of those guys.

Once in a while I'd look up and behind me and once in a while I'd see one swimming just above me or behind me. What a privilege I have to be able to do this.

Again the fish heads are gone too quickly, and the sharks disperse. There's a shipwreck nearby and we go for a closer look since we still have air left (air = time) to explore.
I discover this relatively flat bit where the coral has started to grow. This area is teaming with baby coral fish - it's like Finding Nemo...without the clown fish (didn't see any of those).  They were so cute!!

I also saw my first moray eel - his head was the size of both my hands together. They aren't very attractive. Those things freak me out more than the sharks.

Too soon it's time to come up again...to a torrential down pour - at least we won't need a shower!!

 

By the time we reach shore its beautiful and sunny once again. Gotta love the tropics for that!

Fiji Time

I got to bed early so that I could get a good night's sleep.
But there's a big difference between going to bed early and going to sleep early.
That last one was going to be difficult...kinda like Christmas eve when you're 6.

I managed to get a couple of hours of sleep in before my alarm went off at 2:45am. The taxi I had ordered on-line the night before was arriving at 3:30. Time to get a move on.
Hop in the shower; get dressed; organise snacks; double check I have all my gear; make a smoothie for breakfast. Done. Just in time.

At 3:30 I'm at the bottom of my driveway. I'm alone.
At 3:35 I'm still alone. I call. The woman who answers asks me where I want to go. I tell her that I've already booked a taxi for 3:30 and he's not here.
"Oh. Yes, well you know that's not a guaranteed service."
No shit.
"I can re-fresh the request, but if you know the number to another service you can call them"
Thanks for nothing. I call the competitor. It's now 3:45. My bus leaves in 15 min. I tell the guy my story - panic has set in. He sends the call out and in 2 min my cab is there. We make it with 3 min to spare.

And thus begins my journey.

3 1/2 hours on a bus to Sydney. We arrive at the airport at 7:30. Plane leaves at 10:30. Go through the bag check-in process...and now we wait, wandering around the plethora of duty free shopping opportunities. We board the plane. 4 hours of flying until finally we are in Fiji!!!

As I exit the plane I am hit by a wall of humidity, it takes my breath away. When I left Canberra it was 14 degrees - I'm wearing track pants and a long sleeved shirt (I've already taken off my hoodie). All of this immediately sticks to my skin. I need to find a place to drop my pants - stat. I've already taken off my shirt (I had a tank on underneath). But the toilets are after the customs desk. I have to stand in line and wait. And wait.

As soon as I make it past I b-line it to the toilet and remove the offending pants..and socks. I have to wait to get my suitcase before I can take off my running shoes though.

Our dive crew is meeting in the main hall of the small airport (there's a money exchange place and 4 stores). I'm approached by a woman who places a necklace made from small shells around my neck. "Bula!" she says to me, all smiles. It's official now. I'm in Fiji.

However, we still have not reached our final destination. We all pile into a small bus and we are soon on our way again - direction Suva.
The scenery is lush and green, a big differnce from the browns in Australia! After a couple of hours we see the coast. We pass many small villages, kids big and small are playing soccer/football. There are little wooden stands along the road where people sell mangoes, coconuts, eggplant, you name it. Many smile and wave to us as we pass. Night falls quickly and we are still winding our way up and down the hills following the coast.

We arrive around 8, and we are all exhausted. We check in quickly and then meet up again in the dinning room for some dinner.
As I glance at the menu, I can tell that the next 6 days will be interesting: no vegetarian options in the mains. I ask the waitress and she looks over my shoulder to the menu.
"Do you eat fish?"
"No, nothing with a face" I say.
I finally settle for some bruschetta, a salad and a bowl of cassava chips (french fries basically). Well, it's only 6 days...and I'm in Fiji!!!

This night I had no trouble falling asleep. Tomorrow: Shark diving

P.S. I've had to write this in HTML because for some reason the text side of the site won't work on this comuputer! So if it's a bit choppy you know why...I also can't up-load photos. I've also only got an hour so I haven't been able to "refine" as much as I would have liked - sorry. Lastly, I'm sitting on a leather cube, in 32 degree weather with 80+ humidity - I'm sweating buckets.

...and now for something a little bit different

The Out of Office Assistant is on again. 
Tomorrow I'm off to Fiji!

So what's different about me taking off again you ask? 
Well,  first I'm only going for 6 days. 
Secondly, this will be my first dive trip.

Yep, I'm going away for 6 days with a bunch of strangers so that we can hang out underwater with...sharks! COOL! 
...ok, just the shark part is cool.

I got the flyer from my dive club while I was in Paris, and I told myself that I had to go - I mean who DOESN'T want to go diving with sharks? 
Am I right??
Sharks...and FIJI! 
Ken A*

I'm told that the place we're staying has computers and internet access, so I shall endeavour to bring you all with me to paradise. I don't have an underwater camera, but most of the people I'll be going with do, so hopefully I can get some of their great shots.

I started thinking about packing about a week ago, trying to jam a bunch of dive gear into a carry-on; my usual M.O. 

I quickly learned that that was not going to fly (heh heh see what I did there?)

The 3 small piles at the upper left are the only clothes I'm bringing

...there's A LOT of stuff involved in diving. And it ain't small stuff. And it weighs a hell of a lot more than the 7kgs allowed for carry-on.

Okay, so I would have to check my bag. Problem is this stuff wouldn't fit in my backpack, and I don't own a suitcase. 

We have a little wheeled,  hard-sided, carry-on at work that was donated a few years back...perhaps I could borrow that. 

Nope. Still too small.

Dang it.

I ended up borrowing Steve's suitcase. It turns out to be the perfect size for all my stuff. But I gotta say that I'm a little bit mortified that I'm bringing this relative monster for a 6 day trip!

On the left, suitcase for 6 day dive trip.
On the right, pack for 2 months in South America

The alarm is set for 3am. It's 9:30pm. I'm going to bed now. 
Tomorrow I'll be in Fiji.
:D
 ...if it makes you feel any better, there's rain in the forecast 

*hybrid Canuck/Aussie slang combining Fuckin' A (Canada) and Fuckin' Oath aka 'ken oath (Australia).

Time

Friends, I won't be writing anymore posts about my holiday.

It was difficult to find time to write while I was away because I was with family and a very near and dear friend that I hadn't seen in many years. My intention was to continue to post even though I was already back home.

I returned to Australia on the 11th of August. On the 13th, my beautiful dog was hit and killed by a truck.

Goodbye Junior.

Kilkenny

Cork is quite a big and modern city - second to Dublin - and I'm sure that it has some great things to offer. But, Jolene and I decided we would prefer to make an early start for our next destination rather than go half-corked. So we said goodbye and we were quickly on our way to Kilkenny.

The drive was again on major highways so the only thing we had to watch out for was the garda and radar cameras. The little skoda really had pep and I couldn't hear the engine at all...so there were moments there when I would look down at the speedometer to see that I was clipping along at 160! (the speed limit was 110) Sadly, the radio remained quite useless as a musical form of distraction.

Kilkenny has very old roots dating to the sixth century, but truly made it's mark when it became an important monastic center in the eighth century. It isn't a very big town, but its charms are immediately apparent, with old stone buildings, cobbled streets and charming colourful shops and pubs. Our hostel was in a great location, right in the thick of things. We quickly dropped off our stuff and went for a stroll. 


During our meandering we happened upon  Kilkenny Castle, hard to miss really when you see the size of it. Built on the bank of the river Nore as a defensive position, the first stone castle was completed in 1213 by William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke. Three of the original towers still stand today. 
In 1391 the castle was sold to a wealthy and powerful family called the Butlers of Ormonde, or the Butler family. The family remained living in the castle until 1935 when they sold the contents for £6000...clearly they were hard up for cash. In 1967 the family finally gave up the castle, which was by now falling into ruin. Much of if has now been carefully restored to it's former glory, including hand painted wallpaper from China which was painstakingly reproduced from an original scrap and old photographs.

We continued to wander the streets of Killenny, just enjoying the feel of the place - not too serious, not too touristy...although we did see a guy in a knight's chain mail giving a private tour to a family.  Eventually we were brought home by hunger. Having bought something at the local supermarket, we made our dinner and then planned something for the evening. You know it involved a local pub and possibly some cider.

 I was told by the gent who ran the hostel that there was a pub, round the corner, where there was often live music (the longer I had him talking the Irish-er his accent got...he even said feck - t'was grand). So that night, that's where we went. 

The Brewery Counter is a pub that offers a wide selection of O'Hara beer. No cider. Ah well, Guiness is not the only company that brews an Irish stout so I thought I'd give the O'Hara mob a go. Y'all know I hate beer, right? This is me trying new things.

This is what their site says about their stout:

TASTING NOTES:

Description: Traditional dry Irish stout at 4.3% ABV.

Appearance: A deep black colour with a reddish hue when held to the light. It pours with a thick creamy head that is almost tan in colour.

Aroma: On the nose the drinker experiences a rich and complex coffee aroma with light liquorice notes.

Flavour: This Stout has a robust roast flavour with a full bodied and smooth mouth feel. The roast flavours lead to a dry espresso like finish.

Aftertaste: A generous addition of Fuggles hops lead to a tart bitterness which mingles with the roast espresso flavours on the tongue.

...they fail to mention the distinct after taste of earwax and sweat. 

I managed to drink half the pint, ok, maybe a quarter. Jolene, who had already finished the Irish Red she had ordered, seemed to enjoy it more than I did.  I had to fall back on the old red wine.

Apart from the beer, this bar had 3 bands playing that night and some poetry readings. The bands were all really good, but we couldn't really hear the poets when they spoke, which is too bad as the people down the front seemed to really enjoy them. The ambiance was great in this place. This is the pub experience we had imagined. We soaked it all in until quite late and walked home our ears buzzing with the sound of laughter and camaraderie.

We were sorry we didn't have more time to spend in this lovely town. Tomorrow we were on our way back to Dublin.

One night in Cork

There's a major highway that leads straight to Cork, so we wound our way towards it and soon we were pelting down a nice, wide, multi-lane roadway. With the road easy and straight-forward before us we thought that we would try out the radio. Until this point, we were concentrating on getting our bearings, watching out for small sign posts, or hey, just enjoying the scenery. Now, on this long stretch of road with mostly fields on either side we cranked the tunes!

You know how the Irish have a reputation of being gregarious and talkative? Yeah...there was a lot of talking on the radio. A lot. Up and down the dial we went - talking, talking, talking. If we were lucky enough to find a song playing, it was usually followed by lots and lots of talking...very frustrating! We did find better selections of station when we were closer to major cities, but otherwise, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph can those guys can talk!

The southern part of Ireland, where we now found ourselves is relatively flat, with green pastures and farmed land. We arrived in Cork during afternoon rush hour, of course the hostel we were staying at was on the opposite side from where we came in. We finally made it after circling around the one way streets of the neighbourhood a couple of times. It was a beautiful Georgian place with a sweeping front lawn. But there were pressing matters to attend to, we were starving. We dropped off our stuff and went foraging...for a restaurant.

The hostel is located directly in front of the Cork University College, so we figured that there would be heaps of food-like options available, but alas we were mistaken. We did come across a couple of places, but their vegetarian options were scant or non-existent. Then...
 lo! We came upon Cafe Paradiso. A very fancy vegetarian restaurant.

Jolene ordered the deep fried summer squash flowers with pea & ricotta filling, smoked pepperonata, green onion polenta and basil sauce, and I ordered the
spiced pan fried tofu with asian greens, gingered coconut-tamarind sauce,
rice noodles, and shiitake fritter. We certainly were not going to have cider with this fine meal, so we ordered a nice red wine. They brought us some tapas to start; spiced peanuts, seasoned black and green olives, and some sort of savoury sesame seed brittle...yum!! The meals were superbly delicious, and we remarked on the contrast of our surroundings from just a couple of days ago; from lunching on a hilltop with nature's stark, lonely  beauty laid bare before us; to the opulence of a fine meal, with a fine wine...all of which cost close to 3 times the price of our room that night. "Civilisation" is a strange thing.

Although we were tempted by the desert menu (which included, dark chocolate & olive oil mousse with cherries and spiced almond brittle, gooseberry & almond tartlet with amaretto custard and spiced caramel, and strawberry pavlova with passion fruit syrup to name a few) we desisted and ended up strolling back to the hostel. Once there, I'm rather ashamed to say that we fell promptly asleep.